AKA “The Pen Is Truly Mightier Than The Sword.” Whichever Batman quote you prefer.
One of the reasons behind the inception of ISM was the lack of coverage this music received in the dance press. XLR8R went hipster, Straight No Chaser went out of business, blogs were overwhelmingly about mnml and electrohouse, and the big techno and house websites such as Resident Advisor were not giving out much love either. This site is all about getting some props for the artists, deejays, and labels that we love, providing a place for the people who feel the same music to have a little community, and to try to let new people hear the sounds that we all already know about.
It is that last goal that has led me to this: a review of the new J-Fine 12″ on FXHE up on Resident Advisor. This is the first in what should be a long line of reviews of exactly the same artists that we cover here, but on a much larger platform. RA offered me this opportunity, and after conferring with a bunch of the other ISM crew, I decided to give it a shot. My hope is that doing these reviews I will be able to help good music reach a wider audience, and that ISM will be able to expand its coverage as well by having a higher profile. Look for one more review up there in the next week or so, and then the regular reviews should begin in January. This doesn’t correct all of the problems in their coverage of the music we like, but it is a step in the right direction.
So yeah, this is a call to all the labels and artists that we cover here who read this blog: get in touch! I want to spread the love around to all the people who deserve it. You can contact me via myspace or by leaving a comment here with your email address (in the email address text box so no one else can see it!) and then I can hit you up.
Also, this is an interesting time for ISM in a meta sense, I am completing a guest mix for the TAPE blog (check the links section!) and ISM will be one of the featured subjects of Innersounds’ “Brothers on the Side” blog interviews, links will be up here whenever the bits go online. I love the little family of blogs we have going here, for me my Google reader is definitely my main resource for finding out about music. I love it!
You’re doing a great job and your review is spot-on !
“More important than any modern techniques is the soul of the artist, and the way he uses his tools to express himself. Jason’s raw style fits alongside the traditions that he holds dear, but it is his personality that makes his sound unique. If only more new artists understood this as well as he does, the future of techno would be more promising!”
I couldn’t say it any better - that’s how to teach them !
I’ve been following your blog for a while now and I appreciate it very much. Keep it going like this !
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Nice one Pipecock, RA is in good form but could use some more reviews of your standard.
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good on ya.
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Good looks on the review, i love reading your shit man.
Regards.
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Good on you with the RA gig, Tom. Though at a time when the review section has become ‘Powered By Juno’ (pah - nice to see they’ve got enough money to get involved in some thinly veiled advertising), this seems to clash with your (well placed, I must say) ideology even more. The muscle-mary price-beating tactics of Fopp and local buyers defecting to 100% online shopping has meant the demise of the two key shops here in Bristol over the past 3 years, leaving only Rooted (which has survived due to becoming a dubstep specialists - http://www.rootedrecords.co.uk by the way if you’re that way inclined) and a bunch of second hand stores that have been pretty much pillaged.
What I’d be quite interested to know though, Tom, is if your shop shifts any of its stock on Discogs or Ebay? A lot of shops here in the UK have clung onto this as the revenue stream that keeps them in business by the skin of their teeth.
Also, cheers again for doing the mix for TAPE. Really looking forward to getting my ears round what you’ve come up with.
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“Though at a time when the review section has become ‘Powered By Juno’ (pah - nice to see they’ve got enough money to get involved in some thinly veiled advertising), this seems to clash with your (well placed, I must say) ideology even more.”
well, i will say that the stuff i’m going to be covering for the most part will be vinyl only and in general is the kind of stuff that will likely be in such small runs that it will sell out everywhere, small stores and large internet shops. i’m not above using juno myself (we just got our copies of the Mike Huckaby on Synth from them a couple weeks back because no one else had it!), though i certainly wouldn’t want people thinking my reviews are associated with them. it really was a tough decision, but if things do not work well, i will quit doing it. all the labels i’ve talked to (as i will be reviewing stuff theyre not even getting at the moment) are very into having their stuff reviewed on there, so that makes me feel better about it. even though the net is supposed to be the “great equalizer”, it’s hard to hear about underground things through all the noise. hopefully having access to that large platform for these underground labels will help make the corny popular dance music trend die and we can see the real shit come back.
yeah, we do sell stuff on Discogs, Gemm and Musicstack, though they are not exactly killing it for us at the moment. it is unfortunate that the audience for record shops is going to be changing, very little will be strictly local, but we’re trying to adjust so that we will be able to use the support from out of town buyers to keep the quality level high for the local peeps.
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tom and all you ISM folk you are doing great things by trying to further the real shit. mad respect and mad props!
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Yeah, I’m guilty of spending too much money there as well, but I think it’s a difficult decision to make as a consumer when you’re trying to save on postage and get particular records, and they’re the only ones that have all of them in.
RA is a very popular site though, and I do think that the online press is incredibly euro-centric as far as the more underground electronic labels go. I’m as guilty as anyone as a European myself, but even the US electronic journalists seem more concerned about things coming from Europe (Berlin, more specifically) rather than giving us more of an insight about the good house music that’s coming from round your way. For such a large technologically advanced country, there should be shitloads of good stuff coming out on smaller independent labels that I’m not hearing about, and I think that you writing for RA will at least redress the balance slightly.
That Mike Huckaby 12″ is the fantastic though, isn’t it? You should get a review of that up there.
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I really can’t speak for US dance journalists and why they remain fixated on European acts, it could be the old “the grass is always greener” thing but who knows. Regardless, I guess I am going to be the person who tries to keep this stuff in the public’s eye.
Right now is a very weird time in dance music, I’m obviously not the biggest fan of the way things are going, but I hope that my writing about the music I love will help the labels and artists survive until things settle down and the new way is established. I think local shops will still be around, but it will be a couple years until we know just what it will all look like.
Yeah, that Huckaby is nice. I’m about to write up the most recent Patrice Scott joint for my next review, then I’ll have to see if I can cover that Synth joint. I think Huck has some more stuff in the pipeline as well that I will be able to get out there in the near future. It’s about time that dude blows up.
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Hey Jason, we rocked 2 copies of conical in dublin last night…sounds excellent on a system man! the set was being recorded but the mp3 player broke…damn
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Lerosa was doin a jig too…until the zimerframe broke!!
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